John Jay

Contributor John Jay

Text Box: As a young lawyer in New York in 1768, John Jay was very much in demand to serve his country. Jay was born in New York City on December 12th, 1745. He graduated from King’s College (now Columbia University) in 1764. Early in the American revolution, Jay was appointed to the New York Committee of Correspondence, the Continental Congress and the New York Provincial Congress. He helped draft a constitution for new York and served as the state’s chief justice until 1779. He was President of the Continental Congress in 1778-79. Jay did not favor the independence from Britain. His absence from the signing of the Declaration of Independence was noted by Thomas Jefferson. However, once the revolution was undertaken Jay was an ardent supporter of the new nation. The Congress sent him to Spain in 1779 to get its endorsement of the independence of the colonies. He was also instructed to get a loan for the support of the Revolutionary War. Spain would not provide endorsement or support. In 1782 a party consisting of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay, met British Commissioner Richard Oswald in Paris, France for the formal negotiation of a peace treaty between Britain & the United States. The delegates were sent with specific instructions: to insist only on the Independence of the United States, deferring in all other matters to the French. The French, however, were entangled in another matter with Spain against the British. They refused to consider the matter until Spain had won Gibraltar, a conflict that showed no sign of resolution. So the delegates engaged Oswald in private, being careful to pay their public respects to French officials. The treaty that resulted was a better settlement than the U.S. Congress could ever have hoped for. Britain guaranteed the independence of the United States, ceded all of the territory east of the Mississippi River (except Florida, which belonged to Spain), and gave the Americans valuable fishing rights in the North Atlantic. Jay returned from his European adventure to find that he had been appointed Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs by his colleagues in the Congress. It was during this period that he contributed to the effort for the New Constitution as the author of several essays that are part of the Federalist Papers. James Madison later told Jefferson that he had been invited by Hamilton and Jay to participate in this work and that Jay had been able to contribute only a few articles because of illness. The Judiciary Act that established a federal court system was signed into law by George Washington on September 24th, 1789. He forwarded to the Senate a list of appointments including that of John Jay as the first chief justice of the Supreme court. The appointments were confirmed two days later. The first two and a half years of the court were largely occupied with establishing rules, procedures, and protocol. The court read commissions and admitted lawyers to practice. Early in the second term, Jay had occasion to demonstrate the concept of impartiality of the court. Hamilton sent an urgent request that the Court join the other federal departments in denouncing opposition to a bill that would assume state debts. Jay carefully replied that it was the sole business of the court to rule on the constitutionality of cases being tried before it. He declined to make any comment on the issue of the bill.

Text Box: George Washington had chosen very wisely in selecting the first chief justice. Jay has always been widely respected as a just and reasonable man. His stewardship of the court only improved his standing and, not incidentally, did much to establish the Supreme court as a reasoned and honorable institution. His duties were hard, traveling to hear cases throughout the first circuit. But his proclamations (charges to the various grand juries) were sound, inspiring, and were stated in language that the people in the various jurisdictions greeted with enthusiasm. Jay was soon called to serve his nation in another capacity (refer to Jay’s treaty), and then called in short order to serve his state of New York as Governor. He retired from the Supreme court in 1795. Jay’s Treaty was a controversial political episode in 1795. Despite the Treaty of Paris, signed with Britain in September of 1783, the British were causing problems in and around the territory of the United States. Britain had not attended to all of the war reparations (such as compensation for large-scale theft of slaves) agreed to in the treaty. They continued to occupy western military posts and to pursue fur trading in the Great Lakes region as if it were their own. Further, they interfered with shipping traffic in the Caribbean, searching American ships for contraband and impressing American seamen into service to the Crown. Washington sent Jay to London in 1794 to try to negotiate a solution to these problems. The agreement that Jay returned with did not satisfy anyone. This was no surprise to Hamilton, who had secretly informed the British before hand that the Americans would be willing to compromise on most issues. The British had only agreed to two items: a removal from the western posts (and even then at their own very conditional convenience), and to allow small American ships to trade in the West Indies. The Royal Navy would continue to decide American sovereignty with regard to shipping on a case-by-case basis. Criticism of the Federalist administration was already raging and most people saw this treaty as a terrible compromise to American interests. Jay was burned in effigy in numerous rural areas. Hamilton was stoned in New York City when he defended the treaty at a mass meeting. Though the treaty was ratified by a narrow margin in the Senate, the House later tried to block it by refusing to fund it. Washington, through careful political maneuvering, managed to quell the motion and give the treaty the force of law. Jay was elected as governor of new York in 1795 by a popular majority. This was quite a surprise to him, as he had not even been asked if he would serve. In fact, he was not even in the country when the polling began. Alexander Hamilton was in charge of the Federalist party politics in New York and he was determined that Jay should be elected Governor on the Federalist ticket. Jay was in London at the time negotiating with the British. When he returned on May 28th, 1795, the polling process was well under way. On June 5th the official result was that he had been elected by a majority of 1,589 votes. Jay was forced to retire from the Supreme court, though he would not have chosen to do so, because his friends in New York had called him to service. Though the fury of public reaction to Jay’s treaty marred his first term, he was reelected and proved to be a most popular and productive governor. The political climate in New York in that day was marred by severe partisanship and corruption in appointments, elections and policies. Jay, much to the chagrin of the Federalist party that saw to his election, eliminated these practices wherever he could. He insisted that the only criterion for office was a man’s ability to do the job. He overruled party bosses regularly and retained appointees from the preceding administration where it was reasonable to do so. Jay presided over many measures to improve the business and the quality of life in the state. He undertook a project to improve the navigation of canals in New York. He petitioned the Legislature to increase judicial salaries (unsuccessfully) and, finding the states attorney-general to be severely over worked, recommended that the state be divided into eight regions and that seven assistants be appointed. He reformed the prison system; limited the death penalty, abolished flogging, built new sanitary prisons and generally improved the treatment of prisoners. He supported a bill that would abolish imprisonment for debt. He also advanced a bill that would gradually abolish slavery. This did pass into law during his second term. Jay was a fanatically popular governor, despite the treaty with Britain and in spite of the Federalist party’s political maneuvers that he alternately thwarted and neglected. The people who got him elected could never account for his behavior except that they understood the honor and principle that guided his every decision. As Jay prepared to retire from public life, one last call was laid before him. President John Adams asked him to return as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, to fill a vacancy left by retiring Chief Justice Ellsworth. Jay’s reply to the president indicated that he was too tired and in too poor health to attend the duties of the office. While in the office he had frequently complained about the rigors of attending the circuit court. Within six weeks of his note to the President, the Congress passed a measure that relieved the Supreme court of all circuit court duties. Jay retired just the same. John Jay survived his wife and several of his children. The last years of his life were not comfortable. Though he had a splendid home and the support of his children, his health was poor. Nevertheless he entertained friends and guests. His children were a great source of pleasure to him. During the last two years of his life he was unable to walk without assistance, yet his mind was clear. He died on May 17th, 1829 at noon, in the comfort of his home. He was 84.

“Let it be remembered that civil liberty consists, not in a right to every man to do just what he pleases, but it consists in an equal right to all citizens to have, enjoy, and do, in peace, security and without molestation, whatever the equal and constitutional laws of the country admit to be consistent with the public good.”

First Chief Justice of the United States

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info from: leftjustified.com

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